Animal & Veterinary

Food Safety Modernization Act and Animal Feed

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the most sweeping reform of our food safety laws in more than 70 years, was signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. FSMA aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus from responding to contamination of the food supply to preventing it. The law applies to human food as well as to food for animals, including pets. FDA’s FSMA page contains complete information about the implementation of the law, and the intent of this page is to highlight the FSMA content that will be of most interest to manufacturers and distributors of animal food.

Preventive controls - For the first time, FDA has a legislative mandate to require comprehensive, prevention-based controls across the food supply.

Inspection and Compliance - The legislation recognizes that inspection is an important means of holding industry accountable for its responsibility to produce safe food; thus, the law specifies how often FDA should inspect food producers. FDA is committed to applying its inspection resources in a risk-based manner and adopting innovative inspection approaches.

Imported Food Safety - FDA has new tools to ensure that those imported foods meet US standards and are safe for our consumers. For example, for the first time, importers must verify that their foreign suppliers have adequate preventive controls in place to ensure safety, and FDA will be able to accredit qualified third party auditors to certify that foreign food facilities are complying with U.S. food safety standards.

Response - For the first time, FDA will have mandatory recall authority for all food products. FDA expects that it will only need to invoke this authority infrequently since the food industry largely honors our requests for voluntary recalls.

Although FSMA does not require a registration fee to be paid by registered facilities and there is no fee for an initial FDA inspection, FSMA authorizes FDA to assess and collect fees related to certain domestic food facility, foreign food facility, and importer reinspections. The fee for reinspection is to cover reinspection-related costs when an initial inspection has identified certain food safety problems.

These fees affect only those parties in the food and feed industry whose non-compliance results in the following activities:

Facility reinspections – follow-up inspections conducted by FDA subsequent to a previous facility inspection that identified noncompliance materially related to a food safety requirement of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act). The reinspection must be conducted specifically to determine that compliance has been achieved.

Recalls – food recall activities performed by FDA that are associated with a recall order with which a responsible party has not complied.

Importer reinspections - follow-up inspections of a food offered for import conducted by FDA subsequent to a previous inspection that identified noncompliance materially related to a food safety requirement of the Act. The reinspection must be conducted specifically to determine that compliance has been achieved. As discussed in F.2.2., these fees will not be assessed until the agency has resolved issues associated with these fees and the public has been notified by the agency.

FDA announced in a Federal Register notice the fiscal year 2015 (October 1, 2014 through September 30, 2015) fee schedule. The rates are as follows: $217 an hour if no foreign travel is required and $305 an hour if foreign travel is required.

As stated in FDA’s September 2011 Guidance for Industry: Implementation of the Fee Provisions of Section 107 of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, because FDA recognizes that for some small businesses the full cost recovery of FDA reinspection or recall oversight could impose severe economic hardship, FDA intends to consider reducing certain fees for those firms. FDA is currently developing a guidance document to outline the process through which firms may request such a reduction of fees. FDA does not intend to issue invoices for reinspection or recall order fees until this guidance document has been published.

For facility reinspection fees, FDA will invoice the responsible party for each domestic facility and the United States Agent for each foreign facility for the direct hours, including travel, spent to perform the reinspection at the appropriate hourly rate. For recall order fees, FDA will invoice the responsible party for each domestic facility or an importer who does not comply with a recall order under sections 423 or 412 of the Act for the hours spent to cover food recall activities associated with such order. For importer reinspection fees, FDA will invoice the importer for the direct hours spent to perform the reinspection including travel. Detailed payment information will be included in the invoice.

The following are among FDA’s key new import authorities and mandates. FDA is extending the comment period on the Foreign Supplier Verification Programs for Importers of Food for Humans and Animals and the Accreditation of Third-Party Auditors/Certification Bodies to Conduct Food Safety Audits and to Issue Certifications proposed rules until January 27, 2014. Specific implementation dates specified in the law are noted in parentheses:

Importer accountability:For the first time, importers have an explicit responsibility to verify that their foreign suppliers have adequate preventive controls in place to ensure that the food they produce is safe. (Final regulation and guidance due 1 year following enactment)

Third Party Certification: The FSMA establishes a program through which qualified third parties can certify that foreign food facilities comply with U.S. food safety standards. This certification may be used to facilitate the entry of imports. (Establishment of a system for FDA to recognize accreditation bodies is due 2 years after enactment)

Certification for high risk foods: FDA has the authority to require that high-risk imported foods be accompanied by a credible third party certification or other assurance of compliance as a condition of entry into the U.S.

Voluntary qualified importer program: FDA must establish a voluntary program for importers that provides for expedited review and entry of foods from participating importers. Eligibility is limited to, among other things, importers offering food from certified facilities. (Implementation due 18 months after enactment)

Authority to deny entry: FDA can refuse entry into the U.S. of food from a foreign facility if FDA is denied access by the facility or the country in which the facility is located.

FSMA provides FDA with important new tools for inspection and compliance. Specific implementation dates specified in the law are noted in parentheses:

Mandated inspection frequency: The FSMA establishes a mandated inspection frequency, based on risk, for food facilities and requires the frequency of inspection to increase immediately. All high-risk domestic facilities must be inspected within five years of enactment and no less than every three years thereafter. Within one year of enactment, the law directs FDA to inspect at least 600 foreign facilities and double those inspections every year for the next five years.

Records access: FDA will have access to records, including industry food safety plans and the records firms will be required to keep documenting implementation of their plans.

Testing by accredited laboratories: The FSMA requires certain food testing to be carried out by accredited laboratories and directs FDA to establish a program for laboratory accreditation to ensure that U.S. food testing laboratories meet high-quality standards. (Establishment of accreditation program due 2 years after enactment)

Administrative Detention

The changes made by FSMA to the criteria for administrative detention in the FD&C Act further strengthened FDA’s ability to prevent potentially unsafe food from entering commerce. Under the new criteria, FDA can order an administrative detention if the agency has reason to believe that an article of food is adulterated or misbranded. Prior to FSMA, FDA could order an administrative detention if it had credible evidence or information that the food presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.

For the first time, FDA will have a legislative mandate to require comprehensive, science-based preventive controls across the food supply, including mandatory preventive controls for food facilities. Food facilities are required to implement a written preventive controls plan. This involves: (1) evaluating the hazards that could affect food safety, (2) specifying what preventive steps, or controls, will be put in place to significantly minimize or prevent the hazards, (3) specifying how the facility will monitor these controls to ensure they are working, (4) maintaining routine records of the monitoring, and (5) specifying what actions the facility will take to correct problems that arise.

FDA is expressly authorized to modify the preventive controls requirements for facilities that are solely engaged in the production of animal foods or to exempt those facilities entirely from the preventive controls requirements.

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) recognizes the role of small businesses in the food industry and provides for various ways to assist small businesses in meeting the new food safety requirements of the law. Specifically for several key provisions, the law mandates “plain language” guidance documents and phased-in effective dates. These include:

Training and Education - FDA will enter into agreement with USDA to establish competitive grant program within the National Institute for Food and Agriculture to provide food safety training, education, extension, outreach, and technical assistance to farmers, small food processors and small fruit and vegetable merchant wholesalers. (Section 209 of FSMA)